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And before I realize it, I fall back to sleep and dream.

Chapter Seventeen

Rafe

The sound of Lyric’s light snoring has me smiling. Watching him sleeping peacefully in my arms sends a warmth of contentment throughout my chest, is making me want this moment to last forever.

As Lyric snuggles deeper into me, I start to drift off… until a soft chime intrudes into our quiet space. Hearing the sound again, I carefully sit up and slowly get out of bed, managing to not wake Lyric. I follow the sound to the small drawer where Lyric’s phone sits, charging.

Contemplating for beat if I should pick it up and look at the screen, I decide to not intrude on Lyric’s privacy. The last thing I want is to test the trust between us, especially when it is still thin as a thread. Then I see Eun’s name on the screen.

With a sneer, I pick it up to look at what he texted, but the lock screen prevents me from seeing the message.

“Hey, what’s going on,” Lyric groggily says and then yawns.

“Your phone was pinging. It woke me up.” I bring the cell to him as Lyric sits up. “It’s Eun.”

Lyric’s eyes narrow at me a beat before he glances at the screen. His features soften as he looks back at me. “I thought…”

“I wanted to see what he said,” I say honestly. There’s no point in lying about what my intentions were.

“You couldn’t read it anyway.” He turns the phone around and I see that Eun’s message is written in Korean.

“You’re right.” I shrug. “What does he say?” I ask, not pulling any punches.

“He’s apologizing.” Lyric lets out a long sigh.

“And?” I sit next to him and study his face.

“That’s it. But that’s not going to fix what he did,” Lyric admits, dropping the phone onto his lap. “What hurts me the most is that he knows what my father did to me all those years ago, and yet here’s my best friend, in league with that man.”

“What does your grandmother say about all this? Does she know her own son is trying to sell her property?”

“She does.”

“Why doesn’t she tell him no? She does own the land, doesn’t she?”

“Actually, my grandfather gave it to my father before he died, so that the property and my grandmother could be taken care of.” Lyric sounds so forlorn that it makes me angry on his behalf.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised that my father waited this long to try to take it from her.”

“Then why now?”

“I don’t know,” Lyric admits.

I study Lyric and really see the man before me. “You really love your grandmother.”

“Very much. Aside from my sister, she is the only family member who kept in contact with me after I got sent to the States.” Lyric wipes at his eyes. “That’s the only reason why she has a cell phone, so she can talk to me.”

“She’s the sweetest thing.”

“That woman is feisty, but she has raised me since I was a young child. She’s been more of a parent to me than either of my own parents.”

Another chime from Lyric’s phone has both of us glancing down at the screen.

“It’s Eun again.”